Tag: Politics

Nov 3

2021

Modest turnout for Buffalo’s mayoral election

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The contest between India Walton and Byron Brown looked like it could be close. It wasn’t.  Though it’ll be a while before the write-in votes for Brown are validated and absentee ballots are counted, the outcome is clear: Brown won a fifth term resoundingly, according to unofficial returns from the Erie County Board of Elections. The first hotly contested general election for Buffalo mayor in 16 years — a showdown between ideologies and personalities, drawing national attention and massive infusions of campaign money to both sides — was predicted to drive massive turnout in the city.  It didn’t. In all[...]

Posted 4 years ago

Oct 27

2021

Obfuscation from the Brown camp

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Tuesday, The Buffalo News reported the departure of Byron Brown’s campaign manager, Conor Hurley, earlier this month. Hurley told The News that Brown’s deputy mayor, Betsey Ball — who ran the mayor’s primary campaign — would “carry the mayor across the finish line” as next Tuesday’s vote drew closer. Ball was blamed by many — Brown donor Carl Paladino, among them — for Brown’s primary loss in June. We decided we’d better find out if Ball was taking time off from her job at City Hall to call the shots on the campaign. So, we reached out to the mayor’s[...]

Posted 4 years ago

Oct 13

2021

The keys to a successful write-in campaign

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Successful write-in campaigns for elected office are few and far between. But candidates occasionally find a way to win, and election experts say there is a formula for success. The keys include name recognition, fundraising capability, concerted voter education campaigns, and strong turn-out-the-vote efforts. Lisa Murkowski used these strategies to retain her U.S. Senate seat in Alaska in 2010. Mike Duggan did likewise when he won the race for mayor of Detroit in 2013. Here in Buffalo, Mayor Byron Brown, waging a write-in campaign against Democratic nominee India Walton, has at least some of those advantages going for him. As[...]

Posted 4 years ago

Oct 5

2021

Big donors to Brown and Walton

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Byron Brown’s usual cast of campaign donors are digging deep to support his write-in campaign for mayor, showering the four-term incumbent with $851,000 since he lost the Democratic primary on June 22 to India Walton. Brown’s donors include developers and other companies who do business with the city and patronage employees who depend on the mayor for a paycheck. A number of noteworthy Republicans have also donated significant sums. In many cases, support for Brown is a family affair.  For example, four Nanulas — Anthony, Paul, Philip, and Steven — chipped in $25,000 between them. Anthony Nanula is a former[...]

Posted 4 years ago

Sep 2

2021

Campaign Notes

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Welcome to Campaign Notes, an election blog we update daily with news and intelligence on upcoming elections, including the mayoral race. Geoff Kelly, our government and politics reporter, writes most of the entries, with contributions from other Investigative Post reporters. Email Geoff with tips. Thursday, Nov. 4, 11:50 a.m. Heaney assesses election with with Susan Arbetter How to explain Byron Brown’s landslide victory over India Walton? Susan Arbetter, host of Capital Tonight, put that question to Investigative Post Editor Jim Heaney and here’s what he had to say: Investigative Post, in a previous story, identified four key strategies successful write-in candidates[...]

Posted 4 years ago

Aug 20

2021

The Brown-Paladino connection

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Mayor Byron Brown has said that he doesn’t want controversial developer Carl Paladino’s support for his write-in campaign against Democratic primary winner India Walton.  While fielding questions from reporters following his June 28 announcement that he would stage a write-in campaign, Brown encouraged reporters to research the subject because they would find that he and Paladino “are not close.” In fact, the two have fashioned a working, if not warm, relationship over the years.  Paladino is close enough to the mayor that he confirmed to a WGRZ reporter that he spoke with Brown by telephone shortly after his primary defeat[...]

Posted 4 years ago

Jul 28

2021

Mychajliw’s faulty campaign filing

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On Monday, Erie County’s lame-duck comptroller, Stefan Mychajliw, finally submitted a July campaign finance disclosure filing to the New York State Board of Elections. There are some problems, as there often are with Mychajliw’s campaign finances. First, this filing — one of two required annually of all candidates for elected office — arrived 11 days late. Second, the filing was for the campaign committee he used to run for comptroller, when in fact he is running for supervisor of the Town of Hamburg. That’s against the law: You can’t collect money for one office and use the money to run[...]

Posted 4 years ago
Investigative Post